Industrial dispute at Frankfurt airport goes to courts

FRANKFURT: A German labour court said Tuesday it would decide this week on the legality of strikes by 200 tarmac workers at Frankfurt airport in an increasingly bitter pay dispute.

The Frankfurt Labour Court said in a statement that airport operator Fraport and airline Lufthansa had filed for temporary injunctions, both against further strike action by some 200 so-called apron control staff and against solidarity strikes by air traffic controllers.

The strikers, who direct aircraft in and out of their parking positions from the control tower and on the tarmac, first walked off the job on February 16 over demands for higher pay and bonuses as well as reduced working hours.

Earlier Tuesday their union, the GdF, called on their colleagues in the air traffic control tower to walk out in support as well and force a complete shut-down of Europe's third-busiest hub handling some 1,200 flights a day.

But Fraport and Lufthansa jointly filed for temporary injunctions, against both the main strikes and the additional solidarity strikes by air-traffic controllers.

The court said it would hear the case on the solidarity strikes at 6:00 pm (1700 GMT) Tuesday, and the case on the main strikes at 9:00 am on Wednesday.

Fraport's labour relations chief Herbert Mai said it "cannot be that a company such as DFS, the air traffic control authority which is 100 percent in state ownership and operates a monopoly, is dragged into a private-sector wage dispute."

This showed that the industrial action was growing out of proportion, Mai said.

He accused the GdF leadership of "acting completely irresponsibly to try and push through their exaggerated demands."

The union "is seeking to spark a major conflagration that bears no relation to the massive disruptions in air traffic worldwide and huge economic damage it would cause," Mai said.

The air traffic control authority DFS has said it has also filed for an injunction to prevent the strikes from snowballing.

A stoppage by the air traffic controllers "would bring the airport to a complete standstill," DFS said in a statement, with labour relations chief Jens Bergmann slamming any solidarity strike as "irresponsible and totally out of proportion."

Following an initial five days of walkouts, the 200 tarmac employees returned to work last Wednesday after agreeing to hold new talks with management.

But that new round of talks quickly broke down amid bitter recriminations, and this week has seen hundreds more flights grounded.

Fraport insists it had made concessions "on many points in the union's extremely high demands."

Fraport has said it has been able to ensure that around 80 percent of flights have taken off and landed, with domestic and short-haul flights being primarily hit by the action.

Frankfurt airport, Germany's main hub, is Europe's third busiest after London-Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle.